Table for 1; Joshua 1:9

 "Have I not commanded you?  Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."  Joshua 1:9

Lately it's been a struggle in life.  The world seems out of control from the pandemic to the hate brewing in hearts around our country.  Loved ones are struggling with physical and emotional turmoil and it tends to spill over onto those of us that care.  I am not exempt from any of it, perhaps I take on the burden too much.  The Bible instructs us in Matthew 11:28-30, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yolk is easy and my burden is light."  He has simply asked that I cast my cares upon him so that my burden be light and yet... I try to carry it myself and I get weighed down from it all.  I pray and feel I turn it over to God and then I pick it right back up as if to say, "no God I got it" which is so far from the truth.  To be honest, I don't "got it" and even to think I do is why I get myself so down.

The other day I decided to have a pity party of 1, as I like to call it.  I woke wanting to cry, spent the day fighting the tears and then by evening I was emotionally depleted.  My pity party of 1 turned out to be not much fun at all and was allowing me to sink further into depression and sadness.  That's not a place that I like to be, and for the most part, I've never really spent much time there.  If we sat down and I went through my life story with you, you may understand that I could have chosen to dwell in the sad shallows of life very easily.  I could have chosen to allow all that has happened in my life to make me empty, cold and unhappy.  I could have chosen to allow it to define me and create for me a completely different life than the one I have today.  I could have chosen many different roads to walk down and choose to have a constant pity party of 1, but instead I chose to accept the yolk that God gave me to lighten my load.  I chose to be strong and courageous, to not fear what life throws at me nor to be discouraged because I know that my God is ALWAYS near.  So why the pity party at all, you may ask?  Good question.

I, like most of us, am weak.  I know the one who is strong and who gives me my strength to overcome life's challenges and difficulties.  I realized a long time ago, that without God I am nothing but a weak earthly vessel but with him, I can do all things and can be a strong force in this life.  BUT, God also knows me so intimately, that he knows that I can't do it alone.  So he gave me a tribe, a wonderful God-fearing group of women that recognize when I am struggling and come alongside me to lift me back up through their prayers, their love and support.  I never walk this journey alone, thanks be to God.  I need my tribe and sometimes they need me.  They are an incredible gift that I've been given.  I pray for them daily and I know they do the same for me.  They even respect that sometimes I will have my pity party of 1 and step back to let me have that time.  Gently, and sometimes not so gently, they  lift me back up.  God knew I would need them and he graciously placed them in my life.  He also gave me my Roger, who is my rock.  He, I believe, often knows me better than I know myself.  I am thankful that through all the choosing that I have done in life, that God too made choices for me that are for my good, he even tells us so in Jeremiah 29:11 (my life verse).

So what choices are you making in life?  Are you choosing to continue to make reservations at the pity party table or are you choosing to allow God to help you rise above all the chaos and noise?  Are you choosing to give your burden over to God or are you choosing to take the heavier load knowing you can't do it without him?  Are you choosing to be joyous each day or are you choosing to grumble and complain and wallow in the pits that can drag one down?  Life is not easy, our bodies give out, our minds can sometimes torment and our souls grow weary... but we have the choice to make to take God by the hand, stand alongside our tribes, and choose the road that he places us on where fear does not exist, courage is ours for the taking, and strength comes from the one who created us.  

Under His Wings,

Heather

DEDICATED TO MY TRIBE; Laura, Tanja and Elizabeth

and to my love, Roger, who always has my back

*ism; Another word for hate; Mark 12:29-31

"And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:  And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength:  this is the first commandment.  And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.  There is none other commandment greater than these." KJV

The Message puts it like this, "Jesus said, "The first in importance is... 'so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.'  And here is the second: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.'  There is no other commandment that ranks with these.'"

I know many people feel King James is the only true word so I put it on here, but WOW, the Message drove the message of Christ home plain and simple... LOVE!!!  It wasn't a request, it was a command!  Love God and Love People.  I think that is pretty straight forward and leaves no room for interpretation.  And yet, this one supposedly simple commandment is the hardest of all for so many to do.  Many can find more reasons to hate than they can to love and that boggles my mind.  To me it takes so much energy to hate someone and to hate someone for the most outlandish reasons too.  I call them the "isms"  You all know them... racism, sexism, ageism, etc.  Did you know that currently there are 234 "isms" that one can associate with?  Again, that boggles my mind!

Lately I've seen a lot of ugly on social media and in the news.  Many cry out against a specific "ism" that seems to be pertinent to their own set of demographics or ideals.  Many tend to look at life ONLY through their own lenses and feel no one else can understand their pain or anger they feel against another who has displayed an "ism" towards them or their group, whatever group that may be. I've heard so many excuses as to why one "ism" is acceptable and another not so much.  I've had people tell me that I can't possibly understand their feelings on a specific "ism" because I've never walked in their shoes.  You know what... they are absolutely right!  I cannot understand fully another person's journey as each one is so unique and is only walked by a single life.  I don't know what it's like to be anything besides a white, Christian female who grew up poor, who has experienced many tragedies and pain that very few even know about.  I'm ok with that.  My story is just that, my story and I'm ok with my story because I like who I am today and it took my journey of both triumph and tragedy to get me to where I am today.  It took my journey to teach me about the great commandment to LOVE.  I could choose to continue to look only through my lenses of life lessons and personal demographics to see others, or I could choose to look through the lenses that we each have been equipped with that God gave us from the beginning.  I could choose anger, I could choose resentment, I could choose many things... but instead I choose love because that is what my Jesus commanded.  Love displaces hate.  Love removes the "isms" from the hearts of man.

In recent news we heard of a man, Ahmaud Arbery being shot and killed... his only crime at the time, the color of his skin.  Racism, an "ism" that has never made sense to me.  Sure I see differences in our genetic makeup as far as physical appearances, but beyond that we are plain and simple God's creation.  I've experienced this "ism" personally.  Yes, white people too can experience racism.  This "ism" isn't color blind and it isn't just a North American "ism"... it's global and has been going on for longer than I care to even think about.  When I heard the news report on Mr. Arbery, it brought back a time in my life when I was in his shoes.  I was in St. Louis, MO for a long weekend with my then husband and his two cousins to watch a St. Louis Cardinals game and explore the city a bit.  We decided we would take the long walk back from the stadium to our hotel that was closer to Union Station.  It was a perfect night for a long walk.  I tend to walk a little fast and was in a rather good mood... Cards had won.  My husband and his cousins were probably 20+ steps behind me goofing off and none of us paying much attention to anything around us because there really wasn't much going on and very few people out on the street.  This was back in the mid-late 90s.  I noticed three young men walking the opposite direction across the street from me that seemed to be enjoying the evening too but didn't pay too much attention to them until they took off running across the street towards me and got directly behind me with one whose breath touched my hair and said, "Cap Cap Whitey, you dead".  I felt my heart stop.  Then I heard running as my husband and his cousins had seen what was going on and ran to my defense.  The three young men ran back across the street and out of view while I tried to breathe again.  I could have allowed this to create an "ism" inside me.  I could have determine that all young black men are potentially violent and are out to hurt me but instead I chose love.  I don't know their story.  I don't know their journey nor what they had experienced in life that caused them that night to want to do harm to me because I was white.  But I do know what my Bible tells me and that is to love.  Until the story broke of Mr. Arbery, I had actually forgotten about this incident and the fear I felt that night.  I had forgotten about other similar times as well when I was shown the "true colors of isms" in my life because God gave me the lenses in my glasses to see the way he sees others and there is no "ism"... just love.

What lenses are you wearing today?  What "ism" has plagued you that you can't seem to look at someone through the lenses that Christ has waiting for you?  What stops you from accepting the differences of another whether it be their race, religion, sexual orientation or even gender?  There is one commandment that covers all the others and that is to love.  Lay down the heavy burden of hate and fear and begin to love even those that choose to hate you in return.  Change begins with each one of us and from that change can come new life.

Under His Wings,
Heather

Star Light Star Bright; Genesis 1:16-19

^"16God made two great lights-the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. ¹⁷God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, ¹⁸to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹And there was evening, and there was morning-the fourth day." The other night I sat around a bonfire in the cool of the evening, wrapped in a blanket, listening to the crackle of the fire and feeling the breeze against my skin. The skies became a bit brighter and I realized that the moon was trying to peak through the clouds casting shadows in and out of the flames. But as I gazed at the moon through the tree in front of me, Roger points to another bright spot behind me. It is the second brightest object you can find in the sky at night, it was the planet Venus. Did you know that some refer to Venus as the morning star? It's the only planet to rotate around the sun clockwise and has the slowest rotation around the earth. It's portrayed in such famous paintings as Vincent Van Gogh's 1889 painting, "The Starry Night". I actually have this painting hanging in my bedroom as it's one of my favorites. While sitting in my yard around the fire, I was fascinated by how big and bright Venus appeared even though it was so very far away. It was not lost on me, either, that God set our solar systems in order and has purpose and plan for all things to sustain us here on earth. He gave us light on the 4th day and he saw it was good! Can you imagine if he had left us in a world with only darkness? To never feel the sun on your face, or the warmth from it's embrace on our lands? He could have just stopped at the sun and the moon and that would have been sufficient, but he went one step further and gave us planets, stars and constellations beyond our own galaxies to marvel over. Why? Why would the creator of light choose to give us more than what we need? Have you ever thought about nature and why God gave us so many flowers, trees, plants, animals, birds, fish, etc? Have you ever thought about how special you are to him? Remember he created us too and tells us that he knitted us together in our mother's womb. We were created to be like him so he gave us free will, emotions and intelligence to be companions to him and rule over the earth. Keeping that in perspective, look around today, the world has flipped upside down from another creation, a virus, one without a cure and one on a mission to cause fear and devastation. In the matter of months our nation has gone from prosperous to unemployed, from freedom to lockdown, from having everything at our fingertips to waiting for the shelves to be stocked, and from hugging and being hugged to wearing masks, gloves and keeping a distance from one another. Everything that God gave us to delight us, the light that he gifted us with, this virus has taken and it has placed a great darkness over our nation. Oh but there is coming a time, when the morning star, our "Morning Star" will bring back the light into our lives and shine ever so much brighter. Revelations 22:16 says this, "I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things for the churches I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright and morning star." This is a time for the church to remember that it is in Christ Jesus that we are rooted and it is he that shines brighter than Venus, the morning star that the morning star created. It is Jesus that will again create light in the darkness and bring healing to our nation. We can choose to look at this as a time of despair, meaning a complete absence of hope or we can choose to rest in that there will be joy in the morning, when the daystar rises in the east and restores health to our nation, to our world. We will mourn those that we will have lost but we will help our brothers and sisters find peace again. We will look to the light that was created on the fourth day and know that the light will always drown out the darkness whenever we call upon the bright and morning star, Jesus, to save us. Will you choose to live in the light of Christ today or in the darkness of the one who comes to steal, kill and destroy? Will you choose to not fear but to have hope that the glorious Morning Star will rise again and heal our nation? What do you choose this day? Under His Wings, Heather